


Nothing But A Zero

by MasqueofRedDeath



Category: Captain America
Genre: Blood Kink, Fighting Kink, M/M, but not scary blood kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasqueofRedDeath/pseuds/MasqueofRedDeath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve picks a fight with the jerks up the street and Bucky has to finish it for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing But A Zero

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part of a Christmas present for my friend. She gave me two of her favourite kinks as prompts and I'm writing fics for them. The first kink was blood/bruises/marking. The second is begging. If you're interested in reading that it'll be out in a few days.

Steve didn’t like asking for a lot of things. If he was too short to reach a shelf he would go find something to step on. If he was too weak to pick something up he would shimmy it onto a blanket and drag it across the floor. It was never hard to imagine that Bucky did all of the heavy lifting around their apartment, though the opposite was true. Steve lugged groceries and moved furniture and picked up the heavy lid off the back of the toilet. He just did it in his own way. 

It was only every once in a while that Bucky would hear a soft, embarrassed, “Buck?” And he would fold his paper or set down his beer and find Steve pinned under his own bed, or wobbling on top of a chair in front of his closet, a heavy box towering over him, arms straining and elbows locked. 

Even when Steve was sick he didn’t ask for much. Sometimes he could go a full day holed up in his room without Bucky even noticing he was on the verge of death. Steve would rather shoulder his bad cards alone than make Bucky pick up the slack for him. It made Bucky angry, because Steve shouldn’t have felt ashamed for needing help sometimes. It didn’t make him weak. It just made him rational…

Well, rationality seems like something pigheaded Steve isn’t capable of. Bucky has accepted that his best friend gets into fistfights with morons for reasons that only really make sense to Steve. He has also accepted that Steve is good at starting fights he’s physically incapable of finishing, which usually means that the buck is passed on to Bucky. What he cannot fathom, as he runs out into the street at midnight, shirtless and shoeless, is why Steve would start a fight with their neighbours. 

Peter and Leo Malone are two very big, very mean Irishmen who live in an apartment down the street. They’re brothers, and usually it’s just Peter in the apartment, with a wife who goes out most mornings with her face all bruised up. Since Leo moved in Steve has been constantly going on about how he can hear the fighting from his room. Everyone on the street can hear it, Bucky wants to say. They ignore it because it’s none of their business. 

Steve makes it his business, makes sure Bucky doesn’t hear him when he slips out of the apartment, goes down the block and knocks on the Malone’s door. Bucky knows something major is going on. The fighting is outside, echoing all around. A garbage can clatters to the ground and Bucky can clearly hear Steve shout something heroic and explicit. Bucky is out of bed in a heartbeat, pounding out of the apartment, swearing at every sharp pebble he steps on as he races across the street. The Malone’s are taking turns kicking poor Steve in the ribs while the wife screams from the stoop. There are lights in the windows all up the street and people watch as Bucky bounds up onto the hood of a car and takes a flying leap at Peter. Bucky is smaller than the guy, but he’s stronger and better skilled. He’s been to basic training, and been in more street fights than he would ever admit to his poor dead mother. 

They go sprawling into the gutter, Bucky sitting heavily on Peter’s chest as he socks his big red face over and over again. The guy’s nose makes a surprisingly soft crack when Bucky breaks it. Blood starts gushing and it gets on Bucky’s knuckles, specks onto his stomach. Peter tries to cover his face, tries to push Bucky off. And then someone’s hauling Bucky onto his feet. Leo puts him in a headlock and twists Bucky’s feet right from under him. 

“Let him go!” Steve hollers, and his voice lisps a little. 

Bucky grabs at Leo’s arm, but the bastard is sweaty as all Christ and he can’t get any purchase. He’s flung headlong into the same toppled trashcans where Steve half-sits, blood streaked through his blonde hair. Bucky knocks them both flat, his arms caged around Steve. For a moment they lock eyes, Steve’s wide and nervous. He licks his lips. A hand falls heavy on the back of Bucky’s neck. 

“For Christ sakes, Steve,” he mutters. 

Bucky takes an exasperated inhale before he’s pulled back onto his feet. Leo gets a solid punch to Bucky’s stomach before Bucky gets his ground again. He pushes Leo away and stumbles back, buying him a moment to think. Steve whistles and he looks over in time to catch the lid off of a garbage can that Steve throws. “Shield,” Steve says. 

Bucky turns back around. Leo is coming at him like a freight train, fist pulled back. Steve wants him to use it to shield himself, but that’s not Bucky’s style. Instead Bucky sidesteps Leo and smacks him straight in the face with the lid. He drops to the ground. One of the other neighbours barks out a laugh and there’s a smattering of applause, though when Bucky looks there’s no one in the windows that he can see. 

Both of the Malone’s groan in the street, unable to get up. Peter’s wife runs to him, still screaming her head off, now talking about an ambulance. Bucky admits there’s a lot of blood, but Peter’s going to be okay. It’s Leo that should probably check in for the night. The echo of the lid hitting his big beefy skull is still ringing in Bucky’s ears and Leo isn’t doing a hell of a lot of moving. 

Bucky limps over to Steve, sighing again, and holds out a hand. “I told you to leave it alone.”

“I know,” Steve says. His voice is meek, the way it is when he calls out for help. Bucky knows he’s embarrassed. He hates having his battles fought for him. Steve’s all scraped up, black and blue. There’s a split in his lip that seems too deep for Bucky’s comfort. He reaches out and ruffles Steve’s sticky hair. 

“Let’s go home, pal.”

*

Steve sits on the edge of the bathtub while Bucky runs warm water onto a cloth. They look equally worked over, scraped up and bruised and Steve tries to keep his eyes his hands because Bucky is shirtless and bloody. It’s terrible, but something about Bucky roughed up makes Steve’s heartbeat quicken and his breath get heavy. 

He’s wondered why before. He doesn’t enjoy Bucky being hurt, of course not. But there’s something about the way blood looks against his skin, the way a shiner shows so quickly around his eye. It’s the colour contrast, and how he never shows that any of it actually hurts. He looks so… debauched. He looks bad and Steve likes that. Especially with his black pajama pants slung low on his hips, blood vessels broken along the line of his left hip…

“Steve, are you even listening?”

Steve looks up, looks into Bucky’s eyes and swallows. Bucky has a look on his face that is clearly asking ‘What is wrong with you?’ Steve never feels smaller than after Bucky saves him from a scrap. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, eyes falling to his knees. 

Bucky puts a hand in his hair, but he doesn’t ruffle, doesn’t make it anything friendly or childish. Steve shivers as Bucky’s fingers bury deep and slowly massage his scalp. He almost sighs in relief. That wife of Peter Malone’s pulled his hair when he took a kidney shot at her husband. Sometimes Bucky’ll do this to him. Pet him like he’s something special. And then he’ll smack him light on the shoulder and it’ll be over. Steve lets himself fall into the feeling, refusing to feel guilty, preening a little. 

“You don’t have to be the hero, you know.”

Steve leans further into the touch, eyes falling closed. “I’m never the hero.” He can admit it out loud, so long as he doesn’t need to see Bucky when he says it. “If I’m anything at all then I’m a zero.”

“Shut up Steve,” Bucky says sharply. “Don’t talk like that.”

“It’s true. I can’t save myself from anything. I’m a rag doll.” He feels his voice crumbling, feels his heart sinking when he says, “I try so hard to do stuff for myself, and I just can’t, Buck. I’m useless.”

“That’s not true,” Bucky says, and his voice is low. “You know it isn’t.” 

“Name one thing that I can do properly, that I can do without needing any help.”

There’s a pause, a tense moment, and then Steve can hear Bucky moving, kneeling in front of him so they’re face to face. Steve open’s his eyes and Bucky is so close that Steve can smell the night in his hair, can feel the echo of his breath. “Steve, no one has ever made me act the way I act for you. No one.”

Steve braves a peek. He opens his eyes just a little, and then he can’t close them. There’s a darkening bruise stretching from under Bucky’s right eye, down over his sharp cheekbones. A bit of blood is smeared on the same cheek, a downward swipe that’s so red against his skin. Bucky’s pupils are dilated, most likely in anger, but the way he looks makes Steve believe it’s something else. Makes him believe that for once Bucky wants him. 

It’s like he has no control over it. He moves forward, palms curling over Bucky’s shoulders, and presses their lips together. And then, for some unfathomable reason, Bucky hums softly and presses back.

This is new territory for him. Bucky has kissed Steve a handful of times, usually to get a rise out of him. He’ll peck him on the lips when he goes off to work, hamming it up as though Steve is an ever dutiful housewife. Or when he comes home drunk he’ll grab Steve’s face between his hands and pepper it with sloppy wet kisses, saying, “Oh darling, how I’ve missed you these long winter months!” Steve will laugh too, or he’ll pout and glare and put Bucky to bed. Because he knows it’s not real. It’s a joke. 

This time it’s different. Bucky’s expression is soft. His whole body moves into the pressure of Steve’s lips and one of his hands comes up to cradle Steve’s face. He can’t feel a smirk against his lips, can’t feel a joke in any of it. Bucky opens his mouth a little and Steve follows, shivering when Bucky begins sucking lightly on his bottom lip. He can taste the blood when his bottom lip resplits and be damned if Bucky doesn’t keen. A sharp spike of desire lances up from the base of Steve’s spine, making him cling on to Bucky. He grabs at his shoulders, feels how solid Bucky is, how real. But he doesn’t want to hold him still. He wants to feel Bucky, all of him, while he has this chance. Steve traces his fingers downwards, mapping out Bucky’s torso. Counting the hurts, feeling the rise and fall of his muscles. 

This is real. It’s happening and it’s undeniable. Bucky is his bloody little angel, his unwanted protector, and Steve is allowed to touch. By the soft noises Bucky makes, he’s pretty sure that Bucky is enjoying the touching as much as Steve is. 

Steve keeps up the light, barely there touch, until it’s obvious that Bucky’s controlling his breathing, trying to keep it slow and natural. He runs his fingertips just above the band of Bucky’s pajama’s and Bucky whimpers, low and real and unashamed. Steve pulls back and Bucky is leaning forward, his hands firm on Steve’s waist, and he takes a deep, shaky breath, looking away from Steve with the edge of a smile on his face. 

Bucky’s hands slide down until he can close his fingers around Steve’s hips. Suddenly he pulls Steve right to the edge of the tub, so that they’re flush together. Steve swallows back a startled sound, because they’re both hard and Steve has never gone this far with anyone. Never really imagined it actually happening, especially not with Bucky. But Steve isn't one for missing chances, even when he knows it’s a chance to make a mistake. He leans forward and kisses a bruise on Bucky’s throat—and then he gently touches his teeth to it and sucks. Bucky groans loudly, his hips stuttering forward, giving some friction between them, and Steve gasps, more a feeling than a sound because his lips are still pressed into the crook of Bucky’s neck. 

Knock-knock-knock. 

And it’s broken. Bucky recoils, his face shocked. Steve stares back at him with wide eyes before he bites his bottom lip and casts his gaze down at the floor. The knocking comes again and Bucky clears his throat before saying, “It might be the cops. Stay in here. I’ll get a shirt and answer the door.”

Steve stays seated on the edge of the tub. He watches Bucky go down the hallway to his room and come back with a raggy t-shirt on, baseball bat in hand. His mind is in a whirl as he listens to Bucky rest the bat against the wall beside the door. Slowly he begins to slide backwards. He can feel that he’s doing it, the lip of the tub moving closer to the backs of his knees, but he is powerless to stop it, until finally he’s right down in the tub, feet sticking out of the top. 

He’s still a bit hard, but the all-encompassing fear of what he and Bucky have done is slowly and surely getting rid of that. Bucky is talking to cops, he can hear that. And he knows that he’ll have to talk to them too, but his whole body feels cold and cavernous and drained. He puts his head in his hands, takes a deep breath and lets it out slow. 

When will he ever learn to mind his own business?


End file.
